Archive for March, 2014

If you’ve ever worked with green screen (and we use it for several projects each year), you know that it is not “leprechaun” friendly, so if you’re a meteorologist on St. Patrick’s Day, just be prepared to get pinched since you cannot wear green – at least you can’t wear it on-the-air.

I saw this fun photo being shared on Facebook today from FOX News Channel’s Meterologist, Marina Molina, that is a great example of the technical problem when you wear green with green screen.

And, for Groundhog Day fans (the movie, not the actual day), how can you forget the scene with Andie McDowell who plays a TV news producer having some fun with the chroma key weather set.

The key to doing the best green screen shots involve not keying a static photo backdrop, but a moving video backdrop instead to provide an on location look and feel along with proper lighting. All of our travel satellite media tours with Emily Kaufman, The Travel Mom, use this technique beautifully.

If you were watching the Oscars last Sunday, you were probably loving the A-lister selfie moment just as much as I was. As a matter of fact, as soon as Ellen DeGeneres mentioned she was going to Tweet the photo to set a record for Twitter retweets, I was all over it. I retweeted the photo from both of my twitter accounts and managed not to get stuck in the Twitter meltdown. I also posted it on Facebook. The photo was a hit (especially for my Facebook friends that aren’t on Twitter)!

At the time I was watching the Oscars, I was totally sucked in to believing in the spontaneous comedy of Ellen’s hosting duties. It was such a fun moment that it never even occurred to me that it was pre-planned. Now, that’s almost embarrassing for someone in my profession.

When I did put two and two together I thought it was brilliant. After all, Samsung spent over $20 million sponsoring the Oscars and why shouldn’t they have an integrated ad campaign. How it was executed made it feel as though Hollywood was a little less stuffy. I loved that it integrated social media with the Untouchables. By the way, at “press time” today, the selfie was retweeted over 3.3 million times!

I think that there is a lot to be learned by how Samsung’s Galaxy phone was integrated into the content of the Oscars. It is a fantastic example of the new wave of integrated marketing and PR as an excellent case study in thinking outside the box. Ellen’s team of writer’s deserve a big kudos for their creativity.

For an in-depth behind-the-scenes look at how this blended media strategy took place, read more on Yahoo! Finance.

I love Twitter for so many reasons. Of all the social media tools out there, Twitter is the social media darling that really gets you up close and personal with people you would never have such easy access to in the days before social media transformed the way we communicate with customers, colleagues, friends and fans.

Twitter parties are a great social media tool and one of the best uses of Twitter. When I was a relative novice on Twitter, I discovered Twitter parties. Since my Twitter profile is @TravelProducer, I started participating in Twitter travel parties and the first travel Twitter party I participated in was #TNI, which stands for Travelers Night In. While enjoying the 10 question Q&A over the course of 90 minutes, I got to know a lot of fun people who were either travel bloggers, loved travel or just loved meeting people on Twitter. To my surprise, at the end of the Twitter party I found out that I had won a $450 piece of Hartmann luggage. I thought, “Wow! I didn’t know I could win prizes on Twitter parties.” I was hooked and I became a #TNI regular every Thursday at 12:30 PM Pacific time.

Soon, because of my growing Twitter following as @TravelProducer, I was asked to co-host several of the #TNI Twitter party events and it wasn’t long before I was also recruited to co-host #NUTS every week, a popular weekly Twitter party sponsored by MidlifeRoadTrip.tv that fills the Tweet stream with fun topics (often with a retro theme) for sixty minutes every Tuesday at 12:30 PM Pacific time. The rest is history and I’ve been co-hosting Twitter parties now for several years and also recently launched @TheValueGal that is edging up on 3,000 followers in just a few short months.

What is a Twitter Party? For those of you who may not know exactly what one is, a Twitter Party is an online event sponsored by your brand that you can use to meet your customers, announce a service, launch a product, or simply get people talking about your product. You pick the time, the hashtag, and then people bring into the conversation.

Engage target customers. Twitter parties are a great social media tool to engage directly with people about your product in a genuine way. They also can help you increase web traffic before, during and after the event, help you can increase Twitter followers or Facebook fans, grow your opt-in subscribers to your company emails, and there is the ability to spread your message rapidly on Twitter.

Economical Social Media Outreach. Twitter parties can also be a relatively low-cost social media advertising method and a great way to engage current customers and potential customers as you get them talking about your industry and brand. Ultimately, the goal is to get your brand name trending on Twitter to increase brand awareness, offer helpful information to the Twitterverse about your product, and track the metrics of participants in your twitter party for further analysis.

Planning a Twitter Party. Planning a Twitter party can be a little overwhelming if you’ve never done one before and you’re new to the tweet scene. That’s where CMP Media Cafe can step in and help you through this process with some simple ways to prepare for your Twitter party. We’ll help you:

Develop a Twitter party theme.

Determine a date and time for your Twitter party and/or identify possible synergy of partnering with established Twitter party hosts as a sponsor.

Write a script to help you with managing the flow of conversation and determine what’s the best way to get the conversation flowing – should you go with a traditional Q&A format, a scavenger hunt format, a mix of both, etc.

Design and implement a web site landing page for your Twitter party promotion to collect attendee information.

Write and edit advertising/web site copy.

Use multiple social media channels for promotion and advertising of your Twitter party.

Determine appropriate use of giveaways to generate increased participation in the event.

Identify celebrity or high profile blogger host(s) where appropriate.

Host the party and identify appropriate co-hosts to expand the reach and metrics of your Twitter party event.

Provide a detailed post-party report that includes a list of new followers and subscribers, their e-mail addresses, prize fulfillment and details of your hashtag’s performance before, during and after the event.

Brands love Twitter parties because they’re relatively inexpensive, and they have the potential to generate hundreds (if not thousands) of tweets about your brand in just a couple of hours plus many other benefits.

Blogger Outreach. CMP Media Cafe also offers blogger outreach programs and promotions. Studies show that more and more people seek recommendations and referrals online before making purchasing decisions. Moms are a core demographic and we’ll help you reach them by creating meaningful content through a network of bloggers. Generate more buzz for your brand with a combination of Twitter parties and blogger outreach.

For more information about Twitter Parties and Blogger Outreach, contact me at CMP Media Cafe.